


last year's silhouettes

by acastle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:06:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acastle/pseuds/acastle
Summary: “Oh, well if that isn’t sweet,” Lou is bending to smell the flowers, and she’s picking up the card that came along with it, though he knows who it’s from already, knows only one person who knows just how he likes his flowers.“‘Harry, hope you have an amazing night. Already beyond proud of you. Lots of love, Nialler.’”“I invited him,” he says quietly, every feeling rolling around unpleasantly in his stomach. “I know he’s here, he. I know he’s in London.”“He’s probably busy,” Lou says, “been doing some reshoots for his video, yeah? Busy, popular lad.”Harry knows all of this already. He stays quiet, still feeling hurt.(Niall sends flowers, and Harry didn't think his heart could get even more broken.)





	last year's silhouettes

The bouquet is lovely.

Harry knows it is, sees it. The peach pink roses and peonies bunched together with soft clusters of hydrangeas in white and the palest green, and it is a beautiful arrangement, completely lovely and wonderful.

When he first sees it, he's blank. Then, he feels a white hot anger, an irrational burst of irritation. And then comes a sense of suffocating abandonment.

“Oh, well if that isn’t sweet,” Lou is bending to smell the flowers, and she’s picking up the card that came along with it, though he knows who it’s from already, knows only one person who knows just how he likes his flowers. _“‘Harry, hope you have an amazing night. Already beyond proud of you. Lots of love, Nialler.’”_

“I invited him,” he says quietly, every feeling rolling around unpleasantly in his stomach. “I know he’s here, he. I know he’s in London.”

“He’s probably busy,” Lou says, “been doing some reshoots for his video, yeah? Busy, popular lad.”

Harry knows all of this already. He stays quiet, still feeling hurt.

“Don’t take it to heart, love,” she tells him, and if she only knew. “We should probably get going if you want to make it to your after party, traffic’s bound to be awful-”

“You go on ahead, go with Nick,” he says, eyes still focused on the flowers. They’ve done him no wrong, but he can’t help but feel every bit of resentment telling him to bin or burn them. Or. Throw them at someone.

Lou looks at him strangely, but he takes the bouquet, makes his way to the parking garage, ignoring people’s calls out to him to join them and he’s not meaning to be rude on purpose, but he knows that he’ll just be worse off if he goes along with them. The driver looks confused when Harry gives him the rest of the night off, but nods quietly and hands him the keys to the car, and Harry unceremoniously drops the flowers on the passenger seat next to him, and drives off, feeling the tension in his shoulders spread right down to his fingers, making him squeeze the wheel too hard.

He locks in the code at the gate, blood pounding in his ears, parks and grabs the bouquet with a grip much too tight, slamming the door when he gets out, and his heart is beating too fast from the rush of emotions that are overwhelming him, from seeing that the lights are on inside and the quiet surrounding him.

He jams his thumb on the doorbell, and he breathes hard, waits.

The door opens, and. “Harry?” Niall looks surprised to see him, eyes blinking behind his glasses, looking soft with his hair unstyled and swooping, in that slim maroon jumper from the time they’d been backstage for Louis. Harry swallows when he realizes with a start that it’s the last time he’d seen him, as well. “What, what are you doing here?”

Harry blinks, feeling the anger crush him from the inside. He makes good on his earlier thoughts, and throws the flowers at Niall’s chest.

“Fuck you,” he says quietly, chest heaving with everything he can’t quite contain.

Niall understands immediately. “Harry-”

“I know we’re not, not anymore,” Harry says, hands tight fists on his sides, shaking. He feels like crying. “But. You didn’t go.”

“It’s your night,” Niall tells him, and he hates him. Hates him so much and yet. “No one needs me around.”

“Fuck you,” he repeats, and Niall clenches his jaw. He doesn’t say the ‘ _I needed you’_ resting on the tip of his tongue. He desperately wants to. “You think, you think flowers would have been enough, would suffice-”

“What did you want me to do?” Niall says, and he’s not angry. Not angry now, not when he threw the flowers at him, just waits. Harry hates him, hates him so much.

“I would have thought that the invitation would have been enough of a sign,” he says, and the anger, it leaves him as he says the last word, and left in its place, hurt and disappointment and sadness clawing at his chest, and it leaves him all terrified, knowing Niall will notice and he doesn’t want that, will not let himself break down.

Niall stays silent on his end for a few moments, then. “I’m sorry.”

Harry knows he means it; he sees it, feels it. He doesn’t say anything, tips his head down and he feels too overdressed in his suit in the warm softness and comfort of Niall’s home, but still naked all the same, because he knows better than anyone that Niall can read him all too easily.

“I heard it was incredible,” Niall says after what feels like several minutes. “People have been telling me that. That you were meant for it.”

Harry breathes, listens, lets it sink in. He nods, acknowledging the words, and he stays quiet still.

“Nice of them. Of you, to say that,” he says finally, voice murmured.

It’s quiet again, then he knows Niall finally, _finally_ understands, truly. “Oh, Harry.”

He doesn’t look up, doesn’t have to, because Niall comes to him. Closes the gap between them and pulls him in, holds him tight, the way he knows he needs. Niall’s tucking his face into his neck, the way he used to, and his hand is gentle on his hair, and Harry closes his eyes, allows himself to be held. He buries his face in his shoulder, and embraces him in turn.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Niall tells him gently, and Harry sniffs involuntarily, and he hides further into his neck, embarrassed, but Niall just scratches his back in the soft sweeping way he always does, lets him know that he’s there.

They stand like that, wordlessly and shivering slightly for several silent moments, two idiots by the open doorway on a rather cold summer night, and Harry’s breath leaves him in a shudder, his hands gripping tightly onto Niall’s shirt.

“I,” he’s shocked when his voice is no less trembling than his body, and he pulls back slightly, feeling the stupid urge to cry again when he sees how he’d soaked Niall’s jumper with his tears. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. “I know, that it's just. It's just a film, it's just, I'm not even in it very long, it's not much-”

“It means a lot to you,” Niall says. His hand is warm against Harry's cheek. “It isn't _‘not much.’”_

Harry swallows, willing the tears to not come. He's not quite successful, and he's wiping his nose with the back of his hand, feeling exposed, like a nerve to be prodded and hurt.

“Why didn't you come?” he asks, and his chest hurts. “I. I would have liked to have seen you. To have had your support.”

“I didn't need to be there for you to have my support,” he answers. “You've always had it, Harry. Always will. Whatever you do.”

“But why didn't you go?” he asks again. _I wanted you there, for me._ The most selfish thought, the purest, most honest thought. He knows it shows on his face.

“Because,” Niall doesn't miss a beat, and his eyes are sad in his honesty, “you already said it. We’re not- not like that. Not anymore.”

The nerve’s been prodded, and Harry feels the ache deep in his chest.

“Why'd you break up with me?” he asks, because he wants to know.

“You don't, we don't have to do this now,” Niall tells him carefully, gently, “You've got an after party to get to, it’s supposed to be your night-”

“It’s my night,” he repeats. He keeps his voice steady, makes himself look at Niall dead in the eye. “Why did you break up with me?”

Niall doesn’t answer him immediately, but he doesn't look away, keeps their gaze steady. “Things changed.”

“Because I did?” Harry says hotly, and he's heard it from everyone else. People who claim to know him, people who've interviewed him or stopped him on the street or people online. To hear it from someone he'd shown everything to, though. It would break him. “Because I went on and changed and-”

“No, it wasn’t you, Harry,” Niall says, his voice firm and sure. “You didn't change. And that's what scared me most.”

“I don't understand,” he says, his chest tight.

“You're still you,” Niall tells him, a sad smile gracing his face. “You're still the same person, and when you asked for the break, that's what scared me. Because I thought I'd known you so well, I thought that I could read you and understand you and turns out I couldn't, not all the time.”

“But, I asked you,” Harry tries to understand, “I asked if it was okay, and you. I didn't-”

“I'm not angry,” Niall says. “I wasn't then, not now. It's not about that. It's that here you were with your future planned out without us and asking for a break from us so you could pursue it, and I didn't think that you would do that. That you _could_ do that.”

Harry stares at him, not knowing how to feel, and Niall goes on, “And I'm not angry or anything, Harry. I'm proud of you. Really. It's just. Our situation changed. A lot of things changed. Maybe us? We had to change too. But that's not just on you.”

He doesn't know what to say, and he leans against the nearest wall, trying to take it all in. Been almost two years since everything.

“Maybe,” Niall starts again, and his voice is quiet, contemplating. Like he'd been wanting to say this for quite a while and he'd only been waiting for Harry to be there to finally say it. Harry knows what that feels like. Always seems to be a never ending list of things he'd only want to tell Niall. “This break. Maybe it was what we all needed. And you were the brave one to ask for it first.”

“I didn't mean, for us too,” he tells him, and his heart feels too big. Too vulnerable.

“Doesn't mean we didn't need it,” Niall replies, and he's shit. He's shit for making him feel this way, for hurting him and breaking his heart and letting this happen.

But. He's still right.

They're a little different, from before. Niall's more confident, more versed, more experienced and worldly now. Harry's the slightest bit more guarded, more quiet, more sure of himself and knows what he wants from the life he's living.

They've both changed, a little bit. Still, standing in front of him now, it doesn't change the fact that Niall is still Niall, and he's still Harry. They're not _NiallandHarry_ anymore, not in the way they used to be, and they maybe never will be again. But he's still in love with the person in front of him. Probably always will be.

“I'm sorry for ruining your night,” Niall tells him, and Harry shakes his head, willing himself to not cry. “I can, um. I can bring you to the party, I’m sure it’s still-”

“I don't want to go,” Harry says quietly. He feels himself tremble.

Niall considers him for a moment, before saying, “It won’t be any fun with me here.”

“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” he tells him, and he’s so overcome with everything. He doesn’t know what to feel first.

“Harry.”

“I don’t- I want to be here,” he says. “I know we’re not like that anymore. Doesn’t mean we can’t be something else.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

Harry breathes hard, thinking. Daring to hope, he steps in further, and closes the door behind him finally. Niall doesn’t look the least bit surprised, but the wariness is lining his face, a reluctance that Harry’s unfamiliar with and immediately doesn’t like.

“Please let me kiss you,” he says quietly, hoping and hoping.

It’s silent. Then, “Okay,” Niall answers, voice steady, steadier than Harry’s ever felt in his life.

Harry exhales, and he comes forward, until they’re toe to toe, and when he cups Niall’s face, the stubble is foreign against his palms, the slight bristle of hair as he presses his lips against his strange against his skin, but kissing Niall feels like coming home, all the same. His lips still feel the same, his mouth still opens up easily for his tongue the same way he’s always done, he tastes of everything he’s missed and everything he holds dear, as he always did.

Niall holds him close, his hands warm against his bum, and Harry kisses him deeper and with everything.

“It was never because I didn't love you anymore,” Niall tells him honestly when they part for the quickest of moments. “I love you. I love you a lot. Still.”

Harry cries, lets it go. “I still love you,” he says, breath leaving him like relief, and Niall kisses along his jaw, his throat. “I love you, and you crushed me. I hate you. I hate you.”

“I’m sorry,” Niall kisses him long, calms him. “I’m sorry. We both had to grow. I’m sorry.”

Harry knows all this. He kisses him deep and accepts every apology given to him, and it’s not going to make everything suddenly very easy again. But it’s something.

.

He’s not as familiar with Niall’s place as he wants to be.

The furniture looks different from the last time he’d been here, and he doesn’t know where the rooms are or. Or anything, really. It all feels very Niall, looks and feels completely like a home Niall would make, but. He's not been here, not as much as he'd wanted.

He can't familiarize now, when they're bumping clumsily into walls as they snog and making their way to the bedroom. Niall’s hands are steady, guiding him along as he always does in whatever they do. They don't falter still when they get there, fingers deft and quick as he undoes the buttons of his suit, steady still as Harry sits down on the edge of the bed, and on his lap he settles.

Harry trembles, but pulls him in to kiss him deeper, his hands feeling the skin under his jumper, softer than he remembers.

They make slow work of ridding each other of their clothes, unrushed and quiet and charged. Niall grinds down on him, fingertips skating across his bare chest and teeth on his neck, leaving a bruise he doesn't want to fade in its wake.

He's fingered open in the same slow pace, finger after finger too slicked and careful and it's been some time, but Niall touches him the way he always wants to be touched, the same way he always has.

Niall hisses when he pushes his cock inside him, his face lined with everything he's feeling, and Harry reads him like a book. Pleasure and hurt and adoration and love and overwhelmed with everything. Harry knows everything mirrors on his face as well, and he moans, throwing his head back in the pillow and adjusting to the length inside him.

Niall licks across his throat, his jaw, waiting for him patiently. Harry pants, knees locking in around Niall’s waist and he's raising his hips, trying to roll back underneath him, and he's taken care off.

Niall shoves his tongue into his mouth as he draws out slow, just to fuck in harder than before, one thrust after another, until his pace is steady but not quite fast but bruising all the same.

Harry whimpers, moans and sobs beneath him, the way his hole is opening up so easily for Niall overwhelming him and making him lose his breath. He feels Niall everywhere, inside him and surrounding him and he still feels like it's not enough. Wants him deeper and harder and wants him in his heart, wants just him.

“Wait, hold on,” Niall mutters, teeth clenched, and he takes the pillow next to Harry, makes him lift his hips and he shoves it under his bum. On the next thrust in, Harry sees stars, feels his throat tear itself apart when he shouts.

“Oh, oh _fuck,”_ he moans, loud and his own cock is painful with the urge to come, stuck between their bodies and getting the minimal amount of attention. He spreads his legs wider, willing Niall deeper into his arse and he's pounded into the bed.

_“Fuck, fuck, fuck,”_ Niall gasps, grasping onto a bar on the headboard and gripping tight as he rolls his hips, fucking into Harry, the force of it driving them up the bed and the sound of their skin smacking satisfyingly resonant.

Harry's whimpering below him, kissing and breathing into Niall’s mouth and raising his hips when he can, but mostly he just takes everything he’s given. He loops his arms under Niall’s, coming up to grip him and claw at his shoulders, holding him close, very close, so close he feels like their bodies have molded together and it's become impossible to separate them.

“I want to come,” he breathes, his legs tightening around his waist, and Niall kisses him, understanding, fucking in deeper and harder and fast. He gets even harder, and the feeling of being so full and so well fucked is making him moan and shout and whimper and make so many noises he didn't think he was capable of making.

It's not that he and Niall have had bad or unsatisfying sex when they were together. Very much not the case. It's just, it feels more intense, more charged, more wanting, sexier, better, more more more. He didn't quite think that seeing each other again would make this part any different, but as it had turned out, he can't remember when it had been this overwhelming, before.

“God, _fuck,”_ Niall's voice is low, deep, and he fucks in harder. He gets one hand to get Harry's cock in a loose grip, and with the other, reaches down and traces the rim of his arse, just as he's thrusting into him again. Harry chokes on a breath, and he's coming, getting their chests filthy and he comes hard, hard enough that he feels it fleck his neck, his chin.

Niall grunts, whines low in his throat, and he's fucking harder, in in in and without real rhythm, and it doesn't take long. He comes inside him, shooting in the condom and he rings it out with minute thrusts into his still clenching hole.

Harry trembles, not sure of what to do. He feels very naked, come all over his chest and beads of sweat rolling down his neck, but more than that. He feels helpless to everything he's feeling, his emotions and thoughts exposed and doesn't want to be read but he doesn't want to leave.

Niall watches him carefully, and the look on his face is so achingly tender it makes Harry's chest hurt with want. And he's kissed, so softly and like he's the best thing in the world. The way he's always been kissed by him, and it's with this that Niall murmurs against his mouth, “I love you.”

His chest physically throbs. “I love you,” he says in turn, the words coming from his own mouth so softly, scared with the truth that he's revealing. Like he's never uttered it before. “Please, let me stay tonight.”

He doesn't answer, not for a while, and Harry's heart drops to his stomach. “Do you not, fuck. Do you not want me here?”

“I'll always want you here,” he tells him, and his voice is laced with so much. Harry gets dizzy with trying to pinpoint it all. “It's just, is this a good idea? Are you sure?”

“Please,” Harry shakes with it, breath shuddering, and his eyes sting. He feels like he's being rejected, all over again, though he knows it's nowhere nearly the same. “Please, Niall.”

“Okay,” he says finally, and when Harry cries finally, he's there to wipe the tears, kiss his eyelids, the corners where the tears keep leaking out, and soft on his tongue, always, “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Please forgive me.”

Harry doesn't know how or when they fell asleep. They just did, curled up around one another and when he wakes the following morning, he can feel Niall breathing against the back of his neck, lips skimming his skin the barest bit, his body warm behind him, arm keeping him close.

He blinks in the sunlight, and sighs back against Niall, knowing he can't have this for much longer. He's going to leave, and Niall will leave in another direction. It's just how things are now.

He gets up, gathers his clothes, and stalks off to the bathroom. It feels familiarly odd, being here, where everything bleeds of Niall and his life and it's comforting but also foreign. He dresses up, and as he's taking a piss, he glances at the counter. His heart stops when he sees lotions, hand creams and soaps and different facial products tucked away in the bottom shelf lining the side of the mirror. He knows Niall doesn't use those brands, but. Harry does.

He tries to swallow past the lump in his throat, and he breathes, trying to calm himself down.

When he comes back out to the room, Niall’s awake, sitting up on the bed and leaning against the headboard, looking so inviting and wonderful and he wants to climb back in.

“You're dressed,” he says, tilting his head slightly and taking him in.

“Think I've overstayed my welcome,” Harry says, smiling painfully. “I think, I think I should get going.”

Niall doesn't answer for a long while, and Harry feels extremely foolish, standing there in his suit that's in need of a wash, the remains of the night before haphazardly removed from his body, but he still feels it everywhere, can still feel Niall inside and everywhere, his heart held tightly in his grasp. He knows he can leave, but he finds himself unable.

“You're always welcome,” Niall tells him quietly, the statement loaded. “Do you need to be anywhere in the next hour?”

Harry blinks, and he doesn't want to hope, but it blooms in his chest anyway. “No.”

“Stay for breakfast?” Niall asks him, and. It feels like, for the past several hours, Harry's been trying to earn his place here. Keeps asking to stay, and now, he's the one being asked to.

“I, yeah. Alright,” he says, and Niall gets up, puts on some clothes, and Harry follows him out to the kitchen. Feels like he'll be following him forever.

Niall makes them buttered toast soldiers and a soft boiled egg apiece, and they eat quietly in what feels like the first comfortable silence since he'd first gotten here. Niall’s reading the paper, because of course he does, and Harry sits across him, dipping his sticks of toast into the soft yolk of his egg, adding salt as he goes. He feels too at home, and it's quite unnerving.

He glances at the page he's reading, and he pauses. “Oh.”

“They're saying all good things,” Niall says, and he's in the accompanying picture to the review with Fionn and the other lads, and it's the strangest emotion he's feeling. He can't even fully describe it. “Also about you.”

“I paid them to do that,” he tries to joke, but it falls flat on his ears. Niall looks up, eyes so serious behind his glasses.

“I'm framing this,” he says, and Harry knows he means it.

Harry looks back down at his food, trying to hide his blush, but Niall doesn't comment on it though it's obvious. He eats, plays with his food as Niall tinkers about, getting the mail and looking through work messages on his phone and just going about and never sitting still. It's heart achingly domestic.

He finishes when Niall’s out by the front door, and he's putting his dishes on the sink, ready to wash them though he wants to prolong the moment somehow. He’s not ready for this to be over, and tries to delay, taking care to wipe down everything and rinse and even uses soap, eventually ends up washing them by hand instead of stuffing them in the dishwasher.

“You didn't have to do that.”

“It's fine, I wanted to,” Harry answers, looking back at him, but he finds himself frozen again by what he sees.

“I, um, I don't know if you still want this,” Niall starts quietly, the bouquet in his hands retied and somehow salvaged from the wreck Harry had caused it to become the night before. He thinks it looks even more beautiful now, in the hands of a dear friend, love of his life. “But. I fixed it a little, and, well. It's yours if you want it, but if you don't, um.”

Niall looks shy, unsure, and Harry hates it. He comes forward, wet, soapy hands and all, and takes the bouquet, holding it close to his chest. He looks straight at Niall, keeps his voice as steady as he can manage, “Thank you. You're really lovely.”

Niall blushes, and he doesn't look away. Harry smiles at him, wants to touch him somehow, but he's not quite sure if he can.

His phone ringing ruins the entire moment, and Niall clears his throat, excusing himself so Harry can answer. There are many times in which he's disappointed to see Jeff’s name on the caller ID, but never more so now.

He's told to come back, in need to pack and get on a flight to France in a few hours, and he doesn't speak other than answering in one word replies. Niall comes back when he ends the call, and the look in his face is understanding, resigned.

“I should, I'm. I should get going,” he says, and Niall nods silently. Harry doesn't know what else to do, so he makes his way to the front door, and he hears Niall follow him quietly. It's strained, and the easy silence of breakfast had turned almost stifling, so much that he could not handle it.

“I guess,” he tries to begin, but the words won't come out. His hand is on the doorknob, frozen in position. His chest is tight and he hates everything he's feeling. “I'll. Um. Text me what you think, when you watch it.”

“Or,” Niall speaks up, and Harry looks back at him, and he doesn't want to hope, but. “I can. I can go to New York next week. Go to the premiere there. If, if you will have me there. If that's okay.”

Harry breathes, deep and relieved and happy and he feels like crying. Niall takes in the look on his face, and he comes forward, kisses his cheek, long and lovely. Harry closes his eyes and leans towards his lips, turns his head and meets his mouth with his own. They kiss, softer and silkier and lovelier than any kiss they've had before, and Harry feels instantly lighter.

“More than,” he tells him, before coming in again to kiss him lightly, gently. “I'd. I'd love that.”

“Okay,” he says, and his smile is small but blinding. “Thank you.”

“I'll see you,” he says, and Niall was right; they're not quite the same as before, they're not like that anymore. But when he's seen off with a kiss, soft and sealing his word, they're about to be something else, something warm and lovely and new. Something else.

**Author's Note:**

> go watch dunkirk
> 
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> [say hi](http://www.castlenarry.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
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> 
> [tumblr post](http://castlenarry.tumblr.com/post/163251890295/last-years-silhouettes-niallharry-45k-oh)


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